History Crossword Puzzle of the IT Mafia

Sorry that I have not written in quite some time. Actually, compared to my track record of writing vigorously every day while controlling the urge to write no more than once a day then coming to a halt in a fit of writer’s block, I’m doing VERY well to be sitting here with something to say. Whether or not it will interest anyone, I don’t know. Never-the-less, I will try to share something – at least some ounce of what we have been up to for the past few days (or has it been a week already?).

This morning as Jane sat at the breakfast table eating her freshly baked muffins (courtesy of Martha White… I’m not THAT good), she told us a good story about that which she had dreamed the night before. It took her on a journey to the beach, which sounded lovely and fascinating. While listening to her, I couldn’t help to drift into my own thoughts. Why does it seem like children have the best dreams? Seriously! Annie will wake up some mornings talking about adventures to wonderful far off places like the jungle, space, or Disneyland (which is rather far off and adventurous for a four-year-old). I never seem to make it out of a night sleep with so much excitement taking place. For instance, my dream last night was nothing short of odd, if not a bit humorous. However, in order for you to understand why I might have had such a dream, I will need to give you a little more information first.

We will begin with Jackson, my super-tech geek of a husband who works as an Enterprise Architect (I think that is his title, at least for this week). It sounds impressive and it is, but to be clear, he does not construct plans for buildings or houses. He is an IT Enterprise Architect, which means he constructs lots of things (slide decks, confusing data, lots of boring information) into something at least semi-tangible for his company to be able to use to improve, or not improve, their processes and procedures. That is the best way I know how to describe it; although, I am certain I just did a very terrible job at doing so. As a matter of fact, let us just forget everything I just said. My husband is in the mafia. He might as well be. When asked on the spot what he does, whether he was an IT Enterprise Architect, or in the mafia, it would result in the same dead-pan response that wouldn’t come without a what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-say type of pause.

Any who, to make a long story short (even though I am certain I have already managed not to do so), there is an element of my job as Super Mama that contributes to my husband’s job in the… um… IT Mafia. Let me say, too, that it works both ways. Many people from the outside who don’t understand the purpose of at least one parent staying at home don’t really get that families like ours thrive on a support system. It’s like a game of leap-frog. Sometimes I have issues with the children, and feel a certain amount of Super Crazy Mama coming on at which point Jackson leaps over me and lends a hand. In a family dynamic such as ours, there are also times when the IT Mafia can cause Jackson much distress, so much that you would think that maybe his request to be run over in the driveway with the minivan might make sense. At this point, I leap over him, but instead of doing his job, I turn around and face him. At this point I have to intervene as a psycho-therapist and life-counselor. I have to pull him up (literally sometimes) and remind him to focus on what is important in life. I have to remind him that even though he works outside of the home, and myself in it, we are both working toward the same goals. Those goals would be the well-being of us, Jane, Annie, and Molly (and the asthmatic cat to some degree). For that to come out as a success, we have to have balance both within ourselves, and with each other. I then will take to listening for many hours about work issues, decisions, worries, triumphs, and failures. All the while I offer advice when needed, a laugh when possible, and a heart always. This is the nature of us, our inner-workings, the gears that move us through day-to-day life, and it seems to work for a while. At least until a certain amount of junk gets left in the gears causing things to rust up a bit, which is the point I am starting to realize we are in right now.

For weeks Jackson has been talking about needing a vacation. Where will we go? Silence. We aren’t sure. Geez, the beach would be great, but I need about a ton more 5 mile runs at 5am to get me comfortable enough for that. We could do Disney, but the baby is so little, crazy, and restless at her current stage of development. How about Washington D.C.? I would love to visit the museums, see my friend Kimmi, and tour the sites. Then there is a trip back to Lexington, Saint Louis, Chattanooga… uncertainty. We get to the point where we both just stop thinking and we don’t ever make any real plans to go anywhere. Thus far that has seemed to work. Afterall, we do enjoy being at home. We love long weekends at home, cooking some tasty food, having a glass of wine when the girls are in bed, and venturing out into the city to go on fun adventures with them. Then there came this morning, after I woke up, listened to Jane’s dream of the beach, and then slipped away to contemplate my own dream from the night before. It is at this point that I came to full realization of the amount of rust that has built up on our gears. I also realized that it is probably time to start giving those gears some serious thought toward cleaning them up a bit.

I’m not sure if it is Jackson’s stress at work stealing my thoughts like an evil spirit in the night, or if it is homeschooling haunting my dreams. One thing is for certain, I now know that I, too, NEED A VACATION. My dream last night took me not to the beach, to Disneyland, nor any other far off adventurous place. However, it took me to Jackson’s office, into a meeting room, where I was surrounded by a number of his bright colleagues. I had been called in at a state of emergency to help them fix a problem. They were all sitting in school desks, a manager standing at the front of the room. The manager looked physically drained and sweaty, as though he had just run a marathon in dress clothes. His hair was a mess and he moved about the room frantically looking for correct answers while holding a sheet of paper in his hands. Everyone sat at their desks, each looking at their copies of the same sheet, some tapping their pencils, and others looking to their neighbors for answers. I sat next to Jackson and finally looked over at his sheet. It was a simple crossword puzzle on history facts. I can’t even recall exactly what the questions were, or what any of the answers were. I just remember looking at the paper, then at Jackson, then around the room thinking, “Wow, all of these incredibly bright people have no idea how to look up information.” I pulled out a textbook and opened it to the index, looking for keywords then searching the text. I recall finding at least a few of the answers and sharing them with Jackson and a few people around us. It was a real pinch… the difficult history crossword puzzle of the IT Mafia, but I managed to help them through it. Yes, the dream was just that boring. There is no way to make it sound any better. There is no explanation for a dream such as that, only that it has to be the result of the rusty gears starting to lock up with an overload of books, worries, IT jib-jab, and a family in need of some sort of fantastic get-away.

As for the beach, or Disneyland, or a jungle, I am certain I probably won’t have those fantastic dreams anytime soon. The best part of being a grown up is that even though we seem to be robbed of the awesome dreams childhood provides us, we do have the means to just get up and go, provided we put forth a little planning action. Perhaps that dream was telling me a few things: 1) That Jackson REALLY needs a vacation from work, 2) I REALLY need a vacation from Jackson’s work, and 3) Perhaps, it is just as easy as that crossword puzzle. We just need to pull together some information, fill-in-the-blanks, and go away on a real-life, far-off adventure. Especially considering that if we don’t, our gears might just lock up on us for forever, bringing us to a grinding halt with the textbooks, laptops, children, forgotten goals, and all.

**I just realized that this post wasn’t really about homeschooling at all.